Successful and rigorous qualitative research requires careful planning of purpose, methods, and theoretical frameworks. The qualitative researcher must locate the study in time, space, and culture, and must also locate herself or himself in the study. This is in order to thoroughly and publicly explore his or her purpose, role, and potential biases. Through this process, the researcher defines the ways in which these and other factors inform the research. Finally, the qualitative researcher must take thought of methodology—as opposed to method—and must understand the difference between the two. In this paper, I review basic principles of qualitative inquiry with regard to the nature of qualitative data and theoretical frameworks. I then explore the issues of location and methodology as applied to qualitative inquiry in geoscience education research through examples relevant to the discipline. I describe the process of locating the study, and the ways in which the researcher defines his or her place therein. I then discuss the differences between method and methodology. Finally, I review four specific methodologies, including hermeneutics, phenomenology, ethnography, and policy analysis.

Students with physical disabilities encounter challenges in any scientific discipline, yet the geosciences have extremely low participation levels for persons with disabilities. Because of the emphasis placed on field research at the undergraduate level, persons with mobility impairments face limited opportunities for progressing in the geosciences. One strategy to address this is the application of adaptive technologies, such as virtual field trips (VFTs), as a supplement to traditional field instruction. A common goal of VFTs and other adaptive technologies is to promote equal access to undergraduate geoscience curricula for physically impaired students. If the scientific talents of these students are embraced and accommodated, regardless of their physical ability, the overall welfare of the geosciences as a discipline is enhanced. This paper describes ongoing research into the development of one specific VFT: an electronic re-creation of Mammoth Cave National Park for the Introduction to Cave and Karst Systems field course at a Midwestern research university. This paper focuses on the theoretical processes necessary to conduct qualitative inquiry for the purpose of developing an accessible, alternative field-based learning environment. Grounded theory and critical theory are contrasted as two possible guiding frameworks. Three roles for the researcher are compared: researcher-as-observer, participant-researcher, and action-researcher. Phenomenology is discussed as the preferred methodological choice for this research, and attendant methods are described. Finally, a discussion of validity and reliability issues is provided. This paper is intended to serve as a guide for future researchers embarking on qualitative studies similar to this one.

Phenomenography is an empirical approach to identifying the qualitatively discrete ways in which individuals experience and understand aspects of the world around them. Although established for several decades, the technique is seldom applied (if at all) in geoscience education research, yet it has the potential to significantly enhance undergraduate instruction. This paper presents an overview of phenomenographic inquiry in terms of its characteristic methods and applications to education research. The value of this approach to geoscience education is then demonstrated in a study investigating conceptions of geoscience as an academic discipline. Students enrolled in undergraduate geoscience programs at a single U.K. university, together with geoscience faculty, provided brief, written responses to the question “what do you believe your chosen discipline to be about or concerned with?” Phenomenographic analysis revealed six qualitatively distinct conceptions, ranging from simple to complex, to be present within both the student and faculty populations. Although process-based conceptions dominated both the student and faculty data, simpler conceptions were more pervasive among students, and complex conceptions were more pervasive among faculty. This has implications for curriculum design and instruction since the conceptions held by faculty will influence their assumptions about students' perceptions of geoscience, and the learning strategies and techniques likely to be effective.

Concept inventory (CI) development in higher education is an active research area. As evaluation instruments, the validity and reliability of CIs should be important considerations, particularly as these tools become integral parts of individual, department, or programmatic assessments. While methods used to establish validity and reliability vary, most researchers agree that qualitative data analysis is a necessary prerequisite to writing meaningful questions. The CI's strength as a proxy for conceptual understanding depends upon the link between inventory content and ideas held by the testing population. Most commonly, CI developers utilize qualitative data about student alternative conceptions to write incorrect response options and to check student intentions with think-alouds; less frequent use of qualitative data to write question stems also occurs. The Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI) was developed in the early 2000s in response to a growing need for a widely applicable assessment tool. The instrument is grounded in student data, following earlier efforts in other disciplines, albeit with significant modification. As with earlier efforts, semistructured interviews probed student thinking about foundational ideas in geology and were used to craft inventory questions following protocols for survey development and psychometric analysis. These common qualitative foundations for CI development have been discussed in the CI literature extensively; the significant role that qualitative data play in the question review and revision process has not been considered. This paper explores the importance of qualitative data in question development itself, providing a detailed unpacking of the review and revision process for an exemplar case.

Place-based education is locally situated, experiential, and transdisciplinary. It is informed not only by scientific knowledge of places and regions, but also by the humanistic meanings and affective attachments (senses of place) that people affix to them. Enhanced sense of place is an authentic learning outcome of place-based teaching. Qualitative analyses of a student's behavior and attitudes in a place-based learning context can be used to triangulate instrument-driven psychometry of pre- to postexperience changes in sense of place and content knowledge. Two qualitative ethnographic methods, direct behavioral observation and semistructured interviews, were used formatively and summatively in a Southwest-based earth science course offered to in-service teachers in two underserved rural Arizona school districts in 2006–2007 and 2007–2008. Direct observations were obtained as field notes and video recordings, which were transcribed and coded in an ethogram to ascertain engagement with curriculum and pedagogy. Ethnographic analysis demonstrated increased engagement with place-based course elements over more globally situated components. For interviews, a questionnaire was developed to elicit cognitive and affective responses regarding the course, its curriculum and pedagogy, and the student's sense of the places studied. Verbal, text, and content analyses were applied to the interview data to uncover concepts, patterns, and relationships that were linked into thematic categories. Positive responses to the place-based approach were reported by a majority of participants in three areas: enhanced place attachment and meaning, enhanced science comprehension, and enhanced teaching. These ethnographic methods offer a means to evaluate situated, transdisciplinary teaching for which quantitative instruments may not capture all relevant outcomes.

Visual penetrative ability (VPA) is a basic skill for any geology undergraduate student and is also required in many introductory laboratory exercises designed for nonmajors. This is the ability to visualize the three-dimensional (3-D) underground structure of folded sedimentary rocks from two-dimensional (2-D) surface clues. This study seeks to understand the origins of difficulties that introductory geology students encounter with this task. Problem-solving interviews were conducted with students representing the range of performance on the GeoSAT, a semiquantitative instrument designed to measure VPA. We conducted think-aloud, discursive interviews where participants solved similar 3-D visualization tasks. The interviewers interacted with participants to probe their problem-solving difficulties and thought processes while they were working. Analysis of interviews and videotapes of student gestures yielded insight into the nature of the difficulties faced by students in solving this style of spatial problem, and explained the origin of many of the common incorrect responses seen by previous workers using the GeoSAT. Students with high VPA appear to rapidly construct a 3-D internal visual model, and readily produced gestures and physical expressions illustrating their spatial understanding. Students with poor VPA tend to view external information as merely a type of “gift wrapping” over the cubic volume and do not perceive the internal structure. They also do not typically address spatial concepts through physical expression. We construct a process model for VPA that describes the origin of commonly observed errors at crucial steps, and associated accommodation strategies used by students struggling with spatial visualization of this type.

Research methods and underlying theories for research designs that integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches (i.e., mixed methods) are well documented in the field of education research. What is missing in the literature is a nuts-and-bolts description of the actual practice that goes into creating a good mixed-methods survey instrument for research in the science education domain. This paper will detail the steps involved in designing, implementing, and scoring a valid and reliable mixed-methods survey instrument. This survey instrument was designed to investigate experts' and novices' conceptual understanding of plate tectonics as inferred by their answers to a series of questions related to a modified version of a commonly used cross-section schematic published by the U.S. Geological Survey. Development of the instrument involved numerous revisions with iterative inputs from local and community-based experts. After integration of expert comments, the survey instrument was piloted to a physical science for nonscience majors course. This led to further revisions in the survey instrument to improve communication validity prior to widespread distribution. Development of scoring rubrics similarly required iterative modifications based on a thematic analysis of collected data. By outlining the steps involved in designing, validating, and analyzing this mixed-methods instrument, we believe that this paper can serve as a template for future survey instrument development. In particular, we hope to illustrate the iterative and time-intensive nature of mixed-methods inquiry, both in terms of pre-investigation design and postinvestigation analysis, and to offer our empirically based insights into the instrument and rubric development process.

Concept inventories are relatively new types of diagnostic instruments intended to measure student learning. Concept inventories exist for astronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering, fluid mechanics, geology, and physics. None is yet available for oceanography, and our work to construct the Introduction to Oceanography Concept Inventory Survey (IO-CIS) serves to help fill this gap. In this paper, we discuss the end members of a spectrum of test types from traditional aptitude tests to traditional achievement tests, and we suggest that concept inventory tests are hybrids of the two. An IO-CIS is constructed and validated for a specific Introduction to Oceanography course taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The construction of the IO-CIS is divided into development and evaluation phases, in which the development phases primarily utilize qualitative methods, and the evaluation phase uses quantitative methods. We present an efficient approach to developing a concept inventory test for a single course in the span of a single semester. The focus of this paper is on the development phases, the qualitative methods used, and the issue of validity. We discuss how classical test theory can be used to build a validity argument during test construction of the IO-CIS.

Unlike other informal sites, fossil parks provide visitors collecting opportunities that result in ownership of a small number of fossils. In 2003, we investigated the first three identified U.S. fossil parks at Hamburg, New York; Sylvania, Ohio; and Rockford, Iowa. Case study analyses determined the opportunities to learn geobiology at each site. Data collection proceeded through lived learning experiences, and included field notes, photographic records, informal conversations with park participants, brochures, and on-site signage. Through constant comparative methods, six variable categories converged for fossil park development: (1) informative previsit Web site, (2) authentic collecting in situ, (3) authentic collecting tools, (4) accessibility, (5) fossil identification, and (6) visitor education. These variables were optimized in a model of fossil park design. In 2005, fossil parks at Sharonville, Ohio, and Fossil, Oregon, were investigated in phase 2 of our study, and in 2006, our third case study researched fossil parks in Aurora, North Carolina, and Republic, Washington. Analysis of the seven U.S. fossil park data sets resulted in the emergence of key variables that affected the visitors' opportunities to learn geobiology concepts at fossil parks: (1) authenticity of experience, (2) age of fossils, (3) fossil-collection training and facilities, (4) availability of on-site paleontological mentors, (5) fossil identification via signage and brochures, (6) site organization and wayfinding signs, and (7) accessibility of site, including safety. The seven U.S. fossil parks were ranked against these variables according to their effectiveness as informal science education sites. We conclude that fossil parks can provide valuable informal geobiology education that can contribute to the public's geobiological literacy.

Interviews, paper-and-pencil (PNP) exercises, and class observations were the qualitative research methods used to investigate student alternate conceptions and their cognitive models of geoscience concepts. Three categories of geoscience concepts guided the research: rocks, density and convection, and water. A taxonomy of alternate conceptions is presented for the purpose of discussing the different ways that students conceptualize geoscience concepts, and examples of student-held alternate conceptions are listed herein. Coherent cognitive models about (1) rocks and their origins, (2) mantle dynamics, (3) the storage of groundwater in the subsurface and its connections to drinking water, and (4) the origin and movement of groundwater were generated from the data about alternate conceptions. This study also contains an evaluation of the three methods used in terms of their effectiveness at revealing student thinking, and different models for conceptualizing students' alternate conceptions are discussed. These include the discrete correct-incorrect model, the continuous unscientific-scientific model, the continuum model, the radial model, and the simplified web model. The findings of this research can be used to facilitate constructivist student-centered learning when they are taken into consideration and factored into (1) the practice of teaching, (2) course curriculum development, and (3) the development of formative and summative assessments that might include tests and in-class activities, respectively.

This study empirically examined understanding, evaluation, and use of climate forecasts by prospective policy makers through a quantitative analysis of their interpretation of forecast information and a qualitative analysis of their decision making in a situated condition. Concerning the understanding of forecast data, results showed that people had difficulty in understanding the probabilistic nature of three-category forecasts. In particular, a misunderstanding relating to the category having the highest likelihood versus the other two categories was observed. Concerning evaluation, results showed that forecast users demanded high accuracy, in fact accuracy higher than is possible at the current state of the science in climate forecasting. Many participants did not positively evaluate the quality of forecasts or were reluctant to use the forecasts until the level of agreement between the forecasts and observations was better than is typically possible. In addition, different attitudes toward forecasts among different individuals led to conflicts during group decision making about water allocation for farming. Many participants disregarded the forecasts of precipitation and relied more on historical data showing changes in the reservoir levels for the past 20 yr. Furthermore, people's decisions about whether to consider the forecasts in water allocation tended to be influenced by whether the forecasts supported or undercut their perceived self-interest or predetermined positions. In using the results of this study to improve instruction, the concept of probability and the inevitable existence of uncertainty in forecasts emerged as two key issues.

We explored students' conceptions of plate tectonics using a combined qualitative and quantitative approach consisting of multiple-choice ConcepTest questions, questionnaires, and interviews. When shown schematic images illustrating plate tectonics, half of the students were unable to determine the correct number of tectonic plates. These students appeared to have the most difficulty determining whether or not to count a divergent boundary as a plate boundary, but additional difficulties include confusion between continent-ocean boundaries (shorelines) and plate boundaries, and failure to see the larger picture as a result of focusing on individual boundaries. We propose that the underlying causes for these difficulties stem from the tendency for students to construct their understanding of plate tectonics based on inappropriately applied prior knowledge. For example, when viewing a divergent boundary, many students activate two lines of prior knowledge: (1) if entities are the same (such as ocean plates on both sides of a divergent boundary) then they are not considered separate; and (2) if there is no obvious break (which is not seen on diagrams of divergent boundaries), then they are also not considered separate. The application of both of these lines of prior knowledge results in students concluding the two sides of a divergent boundary are the same plate. Retention of these alternative concepts prevents conceptual change from occurring during the period of instruction and results in students not recognizing divergent boundaries as plate boundaries, leading them to incorrectly count the number of plates.

Visual representations of scientific data make these data accessible and enable students to examine the evidence used to build scientific arguments and test theories, even when the underlying data set is large or complicated. It is becoming more common in science education to use data visualizations based on data that students did not collect themselves. Teachers and instructional designers need to understand how students perceive and interpret such visualizations. This research examined the nature of students' interpretations about a colored, shaded-relief global digital elevation map useful for reasoning about a wide range of Earth processes. One hundred and ninety-six middle and high school students wrote answers to three open-ended questions while viewing the map projected on an overhead screen: “What do you think this is?” “How do you think this was made?” and “What do you think this is useful for?” Nearly half the students surveyed made no mention of topography/bathymetry or an equivalent concept. Twenty percent of the students misinterpreted the map to contain information other than elevation, including inappropriate interpretations such as water, temperature, and weather. Over half of the students did not describe any aspect of data acquisition as a component of the data map creation. In describing the utility of the map, students focused on information-retrieval tasks rather than on making inferences about Earth processes. Based on our findings about geoscience data visualization, we suggest strategies that may be beneficial in designing curriculum for teaching and learning with data maps.

ABSTRACT The goal of this field excursion is to provide an opportunity for focused exploration of field-based teaching and learning. Learning in the field is an essential element in the education and development of geology students, but until recently has received relatively little attention by education researchers. Set against the backdrop of classic bedrock localities of the Midcontinent Rift System in northeastern Minnesota and using new knowledge of how people learn, of learners, and of pedagogical practices, this excursion explores goals for student learning in the field and effective instructional practices for helping students realize those goals.